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[Here was pinned to the page a review of Frontiers of War cut from Soviet Writing, and dated August, 1952.]
Terrible indeed is the exploitation in British colonies revealed in this courageous first novel, written and published under the very eye of the oppressor to reveal to the world the real truth behind British Imperialism! Yet admiration for the courage of the young writer, daring all for her social conscience must not blind us to the incorrect emphasis she gives to the class struggle in Africa. This is the story of a young airman, a true patriot, so soon to die for his country in the Great Anti-Fascist War who falls in with a group of so-called socialists, decadent white settlers who play at politics. Sickened by his experience with this gang of rich cosmopolitan socialites, he turns to the people, to a simple black girl who teaches him the realities of true working-class life. Yet this is precisely the weak point of this well-intentioned but misguided novel. For what contact can a young upper-class Englishman have with the daughter of a cook? What a writer must search for in her calvary towards true artistic verity is the typical. Such a situation is not, cannot be, typical. Suppose the young writer, daring the Himalayas of truth itself, had made her hero a young white working man and her heroine an African organized worker from a factory? In such a situation she might have found a solution, political, social, spiritual, that could have shed light on the future struggle for Freedom in Africa. Where are the working masses in this book? Where the class-conscious fighters? They do not appear. But let not this talented young writer lose heart! The artistic heights are for the great in spirit! Forward! for the sake of the world!
[Review of Frontiers of War, Soviet Gazette, dated August, 1954.]
Majestic and untamed is Africa! What a burst of splendour is revealed before us in the pages of this novel which has just reached us from Great Britain depicting a wartime incident in the very heart of the plains and jungles of the African land.
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The Golden Notebook is a collaboration between if:book London and Apt.
Principal funding by Arts Council England.
HarperCollins, the publisher of The Golden Notebook, digitized the book for us and generously gave permission to reproduce it here in its entirety at no cost.
Additional support from The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and New York University
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